Posts Tagged ‘You Tell Us’

We have an overburdened animal shelter and a police department that is in no position to enforce new animal welfare laws. Oakland doesn’t need policies that encourage people to breed, kill and eat animals for nothing more than gastronomic gratification.

All of us support the idea of children having a healthy school lunch. But what does that really mean? And are the children in the Oakland Unified School District getting it?

For too long, Oakland’s public safety dialog has been framed as a contest between advocates for community policing and crime prevention programs, on the one hand, and supporters of adequate police staffing, on the other. We believe that all three are essential to public safety.

At first, I thought they might be looking at their victim, reacting to their bloody deed, her with a glee in her face that approached the psychotic, him with a rather more appropriate look of moral ambivalence. I was wrong. They were looking at a check.

Police Chief Anthony Batts came to Oakland with the promise that he would have the resources to do the job. Instead of beefing up the department, it has been cannibalized. We have gone from 803 cops to 656 with more losses predicted because of attrition. The city has no plans to recruit new cops. Now it looks like Batts may want to leave.

As sure as it’s the New Year, it’s also school selection season in Oakland. Obsessing about kindergarten is one of those things almost every middle-class parent here does, as normal as buying a family membership at the zoo.